Support for Leadership Teams
In today’s world a single leader can no longer deal with the complexity, the speed and the manifold challenges of change. What is required is a strong and cohesive leadership team at the top.
The key is to get better at working together in order to express the best on both an individual and a collective level. It’s only when the leadership team shares strategies, objectives and ways of working that it will be able to exercise authoritative leadership in order to stimulate innovation, drive change and achieve important long-lasting results.
A leadership team that is able to operate as a high-performance team is the critical factor for a company’s success. This is the only way to mobilize the entire organization so that it can give its best. An intact team works well when it has a shared purpose, clear rules, an adequate mix of competences, a strong orientation to collaboration, and good management of the stakeholders.
Team Development
The Team Development process is made of several steps, based on individual and Team Coaching, which relies on the empowerment of the Team to successfully drive change in the company.
A Team Development project is especially useful whenever there are changes, such as when some new members join the team, a new strategy is to be implemented, during a reorganisation, or to support the management of a merger or an acquisition. This type of work is essential for a newly formed team that is expected to produce results quickly, as well as for established teams, when a change of pace is needed to cope with disruptive challenges in the competitive environment.
It starts with one-on-one work with the team members to create the motivation to change and to identify the important issues that they need to work on. We then move on to Coaching the Team to agree on a shared purpose, identify the goals to achieve and plan the key actions at the individual, team and corporate levels. Among the actions there are often development activities for team members, or for other groups, whenever they enable the implementation of the action plan.
Team Coaching in particular, is a methodology for improving the performance of a Team by increasing the awareness of the current situation, creating a climate of trust and collaboration and channeling conflict constructively, turning an I centred mentality into one based on WE.
How the intervention is structured
There are three main steps: motivation to change, team coaching, and development activities.
1. Motivation to change
The aim of this step is to identify the individual and collective goals. The Coach meets with the Team Leader and each team member individually, doing interviews or focused coaching sessions. This step allows us to identify meaningful development themes for each participant, gather information on the performance and the atmosphere within the team, as well as identifying areas that need improvements and important topics on which to work with the team. In this step, we also use diagnostic tools to detect attitudes and behaviours expressed by individuals.
An additional possibility is that the Coach can attend one of the team’s operational meetings to observe the dynamics and to offer feedback.
2. Team Coaching
The aim of this step is to identify and implement actions to improve the performance of your team and your organization in accordance with business strategy. The Coach works with the Team to create alignment around the mission and strategy; to identify strengths and areas for improvement in the organization, the team and the participants; to share the operational principles for working well together, to value diversity and practice inclusion of individual talents and contributions, as well as identifying actions to drive change, align your organization and achieve the desired results. In these meetings the Coach observes the interactions and the dynamics, then guides the discussions through questions and feedback. The Coach pays attention to a series of key factors: the way the team communicates, the active participation of all roles, individual responsibility, respect for previously contracted rules, approach to decision making the focus on priorities, stakeholder management, and how to resolve conflict within and outside of the team.
Usually an initial 2-day workshop is followed by other, shorter meetings that are 1 to 3 months apart.
3. Development activities
The aim of this step is to implement the necessary development actions for the individuals, the team and the organization, in order to support the change process. They are identified by the team in the previous step and can include one-on-one Coaching, diagnostic tools or the development of specific skills for the team and/or their co-workers.
If you use a diagnostic tool, such as Feedback 360, during step 1, it’s essential that the measurement is repeated at the end of the team’s coaching experience in order to assess the changes.
Team development projects (steps 1 and 2) generally last about 6 to 12 months.